Dr. Plotnick's Moroccan Cat Adventure - Day 5 - Fes

Today is a
bittersweet day.We were sorry to say
goodbye to fascinating Marrakech, but excited to check out Fes.We woke up early, took one last look at our beautiful
riad from our balcony, and one last look at the lovely balcony outside our door.

We bid Sara and her
brother adieu.Anyone traveling to
Marrakech would be guaranteed an excellent time if they stayed at Riad
Tamarrakecht.Sara and her brother
really made the trip a pleasure.

Now we’re
off to the train station.Track 3.Destination: Fes.

Estimated time of arrival: 7 hours.Ugh.

Actually,
the train ride wasn’t too terrible.My
research said we should go first class, and so we did.The price difference was a mere $12; it was
$36 for a first class ticket, vs. $24 for second class.In second class, the compartments hold eight
people.In first class, they hold
six.First class is
air-conditioned.Not sure if second class
is.Mark and I were lucky; our tickets
said we each had the window seats.

We were the first people in the
compartment, but remaining seats quickly filled up.We shared our compartment with a retired
couple from Montreal (the husband was born in Morocco), a young woman from Toronto traveling by herself, and an Muslim woman who tried to steal my window seat (but I wouldn’t let
her.)

We all made pleasant conversation, until they all cleared out
when we reached Casablanca.We had the entire compartment to ourselves
for the rest of the trip.

We finally
got to the Fes station

and were met by
a driver holding up a sign that said “Riad No. 9”.That’s us!

Part of the
service you get when you book a room at Riad Numero 9 is being picked up at the
airport, and then being taken right to the door of the riad. This was key,
because Fes is a labyrinthine city of 9600
alleys, and finding the place would have been totally impossible. Once we arrived at the door, we were met by
Atika, the (very pregnant) housekeeper.
She greeted us warmly and led us inside.

Whoa! The place was stunning. Check out the back wall of the central
courtyard area.

Here’s the
doorway to a lovely sitting room off the main courtyard.

This fountain
had incredible woodwork and tile work

Here’s the wood in detail.

I chose Riad
Numero 9 based on my research. The place
got rave reviews on TripAdvisor, and I saw a video about the place that really
sold me on it. The video is taken from a segment that was broadcast on Home and
Garden TV (HGTV). Check it out yourself;
it’s only about 3 minutes long.

The riad is owned by a native Philadelphian named Stephen di Renza.He came to Morocco a few years ago, fell in
love with the place, and decided to buy a riad.He purchased this 18th century riad for a mere $36,000, and
spent the next three years renovating it.When you buy a riad in Fes, you’re not
just buying a residence; you’re really buying art.This residence was a masterpiece, but you
wouldn’t have known it by looking at it pre-renovation.The floor tiles were covered with century’s
worth of paint, and the beautifully detailed window frames were painted over
with nasty turquoise paint.Stephen had
it all painstakingly restored, which took 3 years.

I struck up
a nice e-mail correspondence with Stephen; I mentioned that he and Mark
probably have a lot in common, in that they’re both from Philly, and that Mark
is Vietnamese (Stephen lived in Vietnam for a while). I told him that I saw
that he had a cat at the riad, and that I loved cats, and he told me that her
name was Ruby and that she was friendly with the guests.I also commented on the great reviews his
place had received, especially the food.He was flattered by my comments, and he offered me and Mark a
complimentary dinner at the riad upon our arrival.Well, let me tell you, of the ten dinners we
ate in Morocco,
the dinner at his riad was absolutely the best we’d had.It was prepared by Atika’s sister, who also worked
at the riad. In the center of the riad was a small square pool, adjacent to the
little rectangular koi pond.However,
they weren’t using it as a pool.Instead, they put a table over it, and in Asian style, they put cushions
on the floor around it, and you eat at the table with your feet dangling into
the (empty, of course) pool.

Dinner started with a little grouping of
four different appetizers on the plate.

Then came the tagines: mine was
chicken with olives, carrots and potatoes,

while Mark had the lamb with
prunes.

We were also in for a very pleasant surprise. The riad has only
three rooms, and we had booked the “middle” room; not the most palatial room,
but not the most low-key room, either.You really can’t go wrong with any of the rooms; all three rooms are
beautiful.Well, we were the only guests
in the riad, so they upgraded us to the biggest room!We had the entire third floor!

Check it
out!

Totally fabulous. The room
was huge, and wonderfully decorated with vibrant fabrics. The mosaic tile floors were great. But the
real stunner was the ceiling. This is
what we stared at every night from the bed.

This view of the room really shows it all.

The window in the bedroom looks down onto the central courtyard.Here’s the view from above.

That’s a dining room table in the center,
with four cushions around it.We ate dinner
and breakfast at this table for nearly every meal.The best perk?It comes with its own cat!

That’s Ruby, the cat that lives at the
riad.She’s adorable, and we became fast
friends.

I had done
a lot of research about Fes, and felt
reasonably confident about trying to navigate my way around the maze-like
medina.But at night, the winding alleyways
were said to be very confusing, and since we arrived in Fes
at 6:00 p.m., we still had some of the day left for us to explore.I had arranged for a tour guide to pick us up
at our riad and show us the city at night.The tour guide arrived at 7:00 and took us on our two-hour sojourn.

Immediately
he took us through some crazy dark winding alley.

We peered into a doorway along the alley and
saw a local craftsman making decorative ceramic tagines.

On the floor in the corner was his impressive
handiwork.

Two days later (and
more confident in my navigation), I found the place, and we bought a bunch of
those little tagines for gifts/souvenirs.

He then led
us to the famous tanneries.

The
medieval Terrasse des Tanneurs is where leather is dyed, in the ancient dyeing
vats of reds, yellows, and blues.
They’re unforgettable, not least because of their putrid smell. The stench comes from bits of rotting animal
flesh still stuck to the sheep, goat, cow, and camel skins, as well as from
pigeon poop, which is used in the process.
Here you can see the different vats of dye in the foreground.

In the background are the
vats of pigeon poop. Way on the upper
left are yellow skins drying on the rooftop.
A close-up of the yellow skins reveals a black and white cat snoozing
amongst them.

I also saw some brown ones drying in the distance.

After the skins go through the pigeon poop, they are put in the dyeing vats and
are stomped on by the tanners.
It’s an ancient art, and the people doing it have been doing it for
generations.

The guys down there
are used to the process and are not bothered by the smell, but let me tell you, the stench is really intense.

In fact, upon entering the tannery, an old guy hands you a sprig of
mint, for you to smell, to counteract the stench.Some folks stuffed a mint leaf into each
nostril.It was all very interesting,
but of course there was a catch.After
the guy shows you the tannery, he leads you to his leather shop, where the hard
sell is on.Hundreds of shoes,

handbags,

belts,

ottomans (deflated),

and jackets,

dyed naturally in the tanneries.The
tour guide undoubtedly gets a commission for leading us through this particular
tannery.We were not interested in
purchasing anything he had to offer, and it was getting awkward, as he was
really pushing it.To his dismay, I
stood my ground and said no, and all he could do was give us his card and hope
we come back the next day, like we promised.(We didn’t.)

Frankly, I was a little (well, very) disappointed in this
tour.It was supposed to be “Fes by Night”.I
chose this tour because Fes is confusing
enough by day, but to the novice it would be nearly impossible to navigate at
night, and I read that you should not wander down certain alleys at night, out
of safety concerns.The photos on the
tour website showed nighttime scenes of Fes.As it happens, the tour began at 7 p.m., and
it was perfectly light out.I was expecting
some lively evening scenes, but alas, it was just the sites that I had planned
to see the following day.As a brief
intro to the city, the tour was okay I suppose, but definitely overpriced,
considering that it didn’t live up to the “night” expectation.

Hi, I’m Arnie. I’m a recently retired cat veterinarian. I began traveling in 2006, and it quickly became my passion. Cat Man Do is all about my love of travel, my obsession with cats, my favorite city (Amsterdam), my interest in music, and further musings on retirement and life in general.